James Creighton of Los Gatos talks about the people's right to be heard

Posted:
02/12/2014 06:04:05 PM PST

Los Gatos resident James Creighton was the keynote speaker recently at an international human rights conference held in Brazil. Creighton spoke on "The Right to Be Heard," describing ways to involve the public in potentially controversial governmental decisions before they are made. He has also conducted training or advised on projects in Thailand, Korea, Japan, Brazil, Israel, Egypt, Russia and the Republic of Georgia. Creighton is a recognized authority on public participation in governmental decision-making and has authored three texts on the subject. He and his wife Maggie have been married 47 years and live in downtown's Almond Grove neighborhood.

How long have you lived in Los Gatos and what do you like about it?

We've lived here off and on for 35 years. There have been intervals where we moved away for a year or two and came back. We like Los Gatos because it still retains some of the small town feel and we know people here. It's easy to know and be known in this town. If we were starting fresh we'd choose either Los Gatos or Palo Alto, but Palo Alto is too much like a city now.

You go to Le Boulanger for coffee every day. What other places do you like?

My wife loves the Purple Onion. We both like the Pastaria Market, Pedro's, Jasmine Chinese Cuisine and Kamakura.

How did you become involved in the field of public participation in government?

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In the late '60s I'd been doing a lot of work on communication skills and I helped launch a parent effectiveness training program. Even though my degrees were in psychology, it was all head knowledge. I needed practical skills in problem solving. So I began teaching skills to companies and government agencies. Also, in 1972 a new law was passed saying we had to have public meetings. In the '90s I became well enough known that I started getting calls from other countries. I did dispute resolution for Russia--they had no mechanism for resolving disputes. And in Egypt a man told me, "Over here if we can't resolve something people start to disappear."

Tell me about your speech "The Right to Be Heard."

Most participants thought if you had elections the people had been heard. But critical issues, particularly environmental things, are decided by bureaucrats, not elected officials. We're creating processes so the people can be heard before decisions are made. Sometimes these are fairly complicated decisions.

Why do this?

Environmental laws require some of this, but usually what makes them want to do this is there's too much pain. In the '70s in the U.S. everyone was bloodied and nothing was getting done.

You mentioned parent effectiveness training earlier. How did that come about?

When Maggie and I got married, we formed a blended family with five kids. We had a tough time keeping the kids reasonably straight--there were drugs, Vietnam protests. All the parenting models we knew were permissive or totalitarian. Parent effectiveness taught my family how to reach mutual agreements. So there were limits, but the limits were mutually set.

Did that bring peace to your family?

At least detente. It significantly changed the dynamic in the family.

There's been a lot of news lately about the government snooping into people's phone records. Given the times we're living in, is government snooping acceptable?

My impression is they've gone too far. I think we'll have to negotiate new privacy balances. Anyone who's protecting national security begins to assume it's all important and forgets other values and concerns. There's always a tendency to push the line. The last administration had a blank check, but the problem now is Congress is so partisan it's going to be hard to get an evaluation based on needs rather than political posturing. When we're doing public participation much of what it's about is understanding how the public weighs the competing values because ultimately values decisions are political decisions.

Is it up to the people then to resolve these conflicts?

Government seems to be working at the state and local levels. Things are pretty awful right now at the federal level, so we're going to have to have a decisive election before the federal situation gets better.